Redesign

The last major redesign of the UAS website was accomplished in 2008. During the deployment of the new CMS it was agreed to create a website that reflected the regional nature of the University of Alaska Southeast. We are one university with campuses in Juneau, Ketchikan and Sitka. Each UAS campus has its own strengths to contribute, but we are stronger to the region and the state as a whole.

UAS Regional Branding: All three campuses are on Alaska's coastline and benefit from that location in our programs, courses and lifestyles. UAS mascot Spike the Whale (Humpback Whale) is also reflected in our regional branding. Learn, Engage, Change communicates who we are to our varied audiences. For more information on Learn, Engage, Change please visit the PR website.

Campus Branding: As stated above, each UAS campus has its own strengths to contribute. Campus branding should complement and strengthen regional branding, but cannot replace it. Each campus has characteristics that are unique to that campus and when combined, make the University of Alaska Southeast a great choice in higher education for both in and out of state residents.

Focus on the Student

The major goal of this redesign is to focus on the student, both future and current. Although our websites are accessed by many groups, its major purpose is to both recruit and retain students. In this effort, our redesign goals include:

Streamline content by audience

Reduce content redundancy

Use simple labels and language

Designed for the Future

The web is accessed increasingly by wireless devices of varying resolution. UAS has been tracking this for some time and has seen an increase by mobile devices. UAS has taken the approach of deploying a responsive design that enables one website that adapts to the screen size, rather than deploying applications for each device. Mobile device visitation has increased from 17,021 visits in 2010-2011 to almost 40,000 during 2011-2012.

Test this responsive design yourself. This is illustrated above as well as being deployed on the CMS help site that you are now visiting. If you do not own a mobile device just grab
the right bottom corner of your browser window and see how the page
reformats itself as you decrease the window's width.

The redesign will utilize the newest browser capabilities, allowing
UAS to position our sites for the next wave of improvements that are to
come our way.